this woman, this stranger, who for some reason seemed to know me better than I knew myself, reached up to touch my face and said, ‘I forgive you. And God does too.’ I felt this surge of warmth from her touch. This feeling of purity, and goodness. I never thought of God before, never in my life, except maybe as a joke, a punch line, a curse, but I felt Him in that moment. The power of His forgiveness through Merilee Magee.”
The audience was in deep, totally invested in this romance—this ménage à trois of Jagger, Merilee and God.
He went on. “We talked for a while, about nothing and everything. Merilee’s pretty hair fell into her eyes, and when I brushed it back, I saw, on her forehead, a large purple blemish. I noticed another one on the side of her neck. She saw me see the spots. ‘Kaposi’s sarcoma,’ she said.
“I realized in that moment that Merilee Magee was dying. I didn’t want to die too. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
“Beneath her apartment there was a small greengrocer called Valetti’s. I walked inside to buy some smokes and found a man threatening the little Italian woman behind the counter. It was the dealer I’d been with the night before. I was hit with the memory of the two of us carrying unconscious Merilee Magee up the stairs to her apartment. I stood there looking at this guy as flashes from the night before hit me like machine-gun fire. As the dealer was leaving the store, he bumped my shoulder. He disappeared down the alley before I could say anything—before I could remind him about the night before, and before I could tell him that the woman he’d drugged was HIV positive. That haunted me. And you understand, girls, this is a cautionary tale—another reason to rely on abstinence to keep yourself safe. You are sleeping with every person your partner has slept with before you. And everyone all those other people slept with. HIV. Venereal disease. Condoms aren’t enough. And they aren’t reliable. The only way to be safe is to abstain.”
The fathers whistled and applauded loudly. Jagger let the noise die down before he went on.
“I thought about following that dealer, figuring my life was over anyway since I probably caught Merilee’s horrible disease. I wanted to get high more than anything. But I heard a voice whispering my name, but the only person inside the grocer was the old Italian lady.
“I heard the voice again—Jagger Jonze—and realized it was coming from the direction of the crucifix hanging behind the cash register. And even though I hadn’t believed in His glorious existence prior to this day, I knew in my heart and soul that it was Jesus Christ the Lord Our God. He had a message for me, and it was simple: ‘Take care of her.’ It was like He whispered the words right into my ear. And the urge to follow His word—which is the very definition of a calling—was so strong that instead of going after the dealer, I told the Italian lady, Mrs. Valetti, about what I’d just experienced. She crossed herself, and never doubted for one single second. Then I told her about Merilee Magee, dying in the apartment upstairs.”
Now the dads were wiping tears from the corners of their eyes. I checked my hive. They couldn’t look away from Reverend Jonze. Ugh.
“Mrs. Valetti and I climbed the dark stairs up to her apartment with some soup for Merilee Magee. I stayed, and hardly left her side again. That’s when I started writing songs about love, God’s love for us, my love for Merilee. I would sing Merilee to sleep every night, strumming on an old guitar I found in her closet. Mrs. Valetti built a shrine around the crucifix in her little store downstairs. Soon the neighbors got wind of the story of me and Merilee Magee. The women from the church fed us, and paid Merilee’s rent, and kept me strong with scripture and love. Through it all, Merilee never expressed her pain or suffering, just her gratitude, and her abiding love for God, and this unworthy man.”
His voice cracked.
“On her deathbed, I made Merilee my wife. And I promised her that I would honor her always, and never touch booze or drugs or have intercourse again. Sobriety and abstinence were my path to God. And Mrs. Merilee Jonze? We never consummated our marriage. Our love was pure and